


April

by maplestreet83



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, calm hanging out with the party, the spring of 1985, the summer can't come soon enough, with a hint of mileven
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-29 01:52:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14462478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maplestreet83/pseuds/maplestreet83
Summary: The winter of 1984-1985 is finally over and spring has come to Hawkins, Indiana. And with it the anticipation of the coming summer full of promise.





	April

**Author's Note:**

> Was inspired to write this after the confirmation of season 3 taking place during the summer. I'm so excited for it! So here's the party hanging out on a sunny spring day.

That Saturday was warm and sunny, one of those April days when the stubborn grasp of the Indiana winter was nowhere to be felt and the bright spring sun was shining from the blue sky. El remembered days like these from last year, when she had ignored Hopper’s rules for a while and looked up the spring sky with its bright sun and fluffy clouds through the dusty windows of the cabin. The sky could be seen through the branches of the trees surrounding the cabin, which were sprouting bright green new leaves of spring.

She had found it all endlessly fascinating and a few times she had been very close to opening the locks on the front door and walking outside, especially when small birds started to land on the newly green branches. She had convinced Hopper to put out a bird feeder in front of the window so she could see them more closely, and that had been enough for a while. But eventually seeing the brightly colored birds coming to feed and the flying away amongst the green branches or up to the blue sky, just made El more and more frustrated and she stopped observing them, moving onto some other form of distraction to spend her long days alone at the cabin.

But those days were gone now and El could see the sky, the trees and the birds for herself from where she was sitting on the wooden steps in front of the cabin. Now that she was outside she could see the shades of blue of the sky more vividly, feel the sunshine on her face more warmly and feel the fresh spring breeze flowing by, moving strands of her curly hair and bringing with it a fresh forest smell of dirt and newly grown grass and flowers. All of it made joy and excitement rise inside of her. They were signs of summer, and summer was when doctor Owens had said she could start leaving the cabin and slowly get integrated to the rest of Hawkins. To integrate, she had looked up in her dictionary immediately Hopper had told her the news, meant to ‘unite with something else’ and to ‘blend into a whole unit’ and ever since learning about it, El had been eagerly waiting for that to finally happen. Summer also meant that she could see all her friends more often, not only on the weekends and occasional visits after school.

Now was one of their weekend visits and the whole party was sitting on the porch of the cabin, taking in the spring sun. El had brought out the radio and a Wham! cassette she had borrowed from Nancy was playing, bright sounds of vocals, guitar and synth drums filling the air and making her tap her sneakered foot on the wooden step. Dustin was sitting on the porch, dramatically lip-synching to the song, his legs swinging from the edge of the porch. Will was next to him, humming along happily, his eyes focused down to his sketchbook where he was filling the page with bright spring greens of a valley and a castle their last D&D campaign had taken place at.

The song ended and there was a small clanking sound from the radio to tell them that the tape had to be flipped over. Everyone’s faces turned to Lucas who was the one closest to it, sitting on an old and beaten down arm chair they had lugged out to the porch, (well El had done most of the lifting with her powers, but Dustin still insisted their moral support had been integral) crammed to the seat next to Max and his face buried in a comic. When it became clear he wasn’t catching the hint, Max huffed, her voice amused and shoved his shoulder.

“Oh, what? Did you say something?” Lucas asked, looking all disoriented and confused.

“The tape, knucklehead,” Max said, pointing toward the radio that was balanced on the porch railing. Clearly still confused after being pulled away from an gripping read, Lucas just turned to look at the radio, his brow wrinkled in confusion.

“You need to flip over the tape,” Mike told him, turning back to face him from where he was sitting on the steps next to El.

“Why me?” Lucas asked, his brows shooting up in outrage.

“You’re the closest,” Mike pointed out with a shrug that added a silent ‘obviously’.

“Well I did it the last time, it’s someone else’s turn,” Lucas said back. “There needs to be order to these things, otherwise we descend into anarchy, you know,” he added adamantly, garnering an amused eye roll from Max.

“Besides,” he continued, lifting up the brightly colored and action-packed cover of the comic book. “My dad finally found a place that had ‘Crisis on Infinite Earths’ in stock so I’m planning on reading it!”

“And remember I’m next in line to read it!” Dustin pointed out loudly.

“And then me!” Will added with a raise of his hand.

“Okay, fine, you can read it. Just so we can all get the turn to read it as quickly as possible,” Mike agreed with a frustrated sigh. “But someone still has to flip over the tape,” he added.

“Why don’t you just do it?” Max asked him, pulling her legs up to the seat. Mike opened his mouth to say something, but no sound came out as his eyes quickly darted down to where his and El’s hands were clasped together comfortably between where they were sitting side by side. Everyone else followed his gaze, seeing what was preventing him from getting up. There was a short snort from Dustin and a knowing  “ _ooh_ ” from Max and a faint blush that spread on Mike’s face as he clearly tried to think of something to say back to them. A smile tugged on the corner of El’s lips as she gently squeezed his hand. Mike turned his face to look at her, the blush spreading a bit more, his mouth slightly ajar as he was still trying to come up with something to say to save the situation. Luckily he didn’t have to.

“I’ll get it,” El reassured him with a smile, turning to face the radio, extending her free hand and narrowing her eyes in concentration. The radio started shaking slightly and then it was suddenly yanked through the air, flying toward her. El leaned forward a bit, catching it with a bit of fumbling as Lucas let out an impressed noise.

“That never stops being cool,” Will said, admiration in his voice and El took an appreciative sideways glance at him before focusing back on the radio, popping open the cassette slot.

“Here we go,” she said, drawing out the sentence as she flipped over the tape and put it back in, snapping the slot closed and pushing play. Bright music started to flow out of the speakers again and El set the radio down on the step next to her.

“See that you guys? It wasn’t that hard,” Max pointed out, lifting her comic book back up to read it, her brows raised in mocking amusement.

“Well not all of us have super powers, you know,” Lucas said defensively, but Max just answered his tone with a soft laugh, nudging his shoulder with hers.

“I know, I know. Geez, Stalker, I was just messing with you. But if you did have a super power, which one would you pick?” she asked, setting her comic back down.

“Easy,” Lucas said, going through a couple of pages in his comic book before landing on a page, on which he pointed at one of the characters wearing a bright red outfit with yellow lightning bolts.

“Superspeed!” he announced, with flare in his voice.

“Come on, shooting lasers would be way cooler and you know it!” Dustin pointed out.

“Or flying!” Will added and soon the four of them were engrossed in a heated debate on the pros and cons of all the different super powers.

El listened to the argument for a bit before turning back to face forward, bopping her head slightly to the beat of the music as her eyes moved over to study the woods surrounding them. She noticed a woodpecker further away in the forest, knocking its beak on a tree trunk. Mike must have noticed what she was looking at as he asked, pointing out to the woods:

“What kind of bird is that?”

“I’m pretty sure it’s the red-bellied woodpecker,” El wondered, tilting her head to the side a bit.

“Cause it has red on its head, see?” she added, also pointing her finger toward the trees as she turned her face to Mike. His eyes narrowed in concentration as he looked at the bird, spotting the features El had pointed out. Dustin had been borrowing her books from his vast collection of animal encyclopedias and the ones of birds were El’s favorites, they made observing the birds at the feeder outside the window so much more interesting.

“I think you’re right,” Mike said with a nod, adding: “I don’t get how you can see all the details so clearly from all the way back there, though. I can barely see it!” El shrugged, a smirk spreading to her face as she said:

“Didn’t I tell you, super sight is also one of my powers.” Mike’s eyes went wide in surprise for a second and El let out a small laugh, ducking her head down and nudging her knee with his. Mike broke into a smile too, still a bit in awe every time she joked, it being something she was only slowly starting to get the hang of. They stayed in a comfortable silence for a while, listening to the music and the drown of conversation from the rest of the party, the sides of their legs brushing together as they sat.

“If you could have a superpower, which one would you pick?” El asked, even though the conversation around them had already moved on to other things. She turned to Mike who was resting his chin on his hand, his elbow propped on his knee.

“Well ever since I was little I’ve wanted to be able to read minds,” he said. “To learn what everyone was thinking so I could be the smartest person in the world, you know,” he continued with a smirk, leaning back, his palms planted behind him on the porch, head turned to look up at the blue sky. El smiled at his answer, her eyes trailing to his dark hair that looked so shiny and pretty in the bright sun.

“But it’s not just that,” Mike continued, turning his head to face El, catching her gaze.

“I thought that if I could read everyone’s minds, I’d know if someone was in trouble or having a hard time. So I could help them. To know what to do to make everything better.” The joking smirk was nowhere to be seen, as his face was full of sincerity. In his eyes there was a hint of regret, signs of all the times he had wished he had possessed that power visible on his face as his gaze fleeted over to where Will was sitting, laughing at a joke Max had told. But the moment was soon broken as he quickly shook his head, saying:

“I mean, I don’t know if that even makes any sense. It’s probably stupid anyways.”

“No, it’s not stupid,” El said, shaking her head, leaning toward him and gently setting her hand on his shoulder.

“Yeah?” Mike asked, looking up from under his mess of hair, the uncertainty about his confession slowly melting from his face. El nodded at him encouragingly, bringing her hand down from his shoulder to grab his, their fingers intertwining familiarly and comfortably.

“Besides,” she said, looking down at their hands as she ran her thumb over the back of his hand.

“You don’t need a superpower to help and take care of people. You are so good at it already. That’s why I like you,” she added, a blush creeping on her face as she peeked up at Mike, his face hovering close to hers, his eyes full of silent awe and adoration. Before El could stop and think more about it, she leaned forward just a bit to feel Mike’s lips on hers, in a kiss that was as warm and sweet and bright as the spring sun. Leaning back, El opened her eyes and saw Mike looking a bit flustered as he glanced over at their friends, who hadn’t noticed what they were doing, or pretending that they hadn’t anyways. Focusing back on her, Mike bit his lip before saying:

“Thanks. And I like you too. Like a lot.” El grinned at his words, feeling them warming up her chest and making the sun shine that much brighter. Mike matched her smile, grinning wide, the happiness reaching his dark eyes and making little laugh lines appear in their corners. Squeezing his hand, El leaned forward again, letting her head fall onto his shoulder.

“Also I think you have enough super powers for the both of us,” Mike commented, leaning his head against hers, her soft curls tickling his cheek.

“I’m more than okay just being your sidekick,” he added with a smile and a soft kiss to her hair.

“Like a team?,” El asked and Mike answered her question with a happy hum.

“I’d like that,” she added, burrowing further into his side, nudging his sneakered foot with hers. They stayed like that for a while, taking in the signs of the coming summer and breathing in the air so full of promise of all the things to come. All the things they would get to see and do and experience. Together. As a team. And as they were inevitably pulled back to the conversation, now debating if for El’s first ever movie, they should take her to see Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome or Back to the Future, El was full of excitement and giddy joy. Summer couldn’t come fast enough.


End file.
